Produced by Odaily
Produced by Odaily
Text | Lu Xiaoming Aloe Vera
On July 18th, we met Gavin Wood in Chaoyang District, Beijing. He has many titles: Founder of Polkadot, former CTO of Ethereum, founder of Ethereum client Parity and Web 3.The reason for this opportunity is thanks to thePolkadot China Tour Activities
, Beijing is Gavin's first stop, and he will attend the meetup at Beijing Station in the evening. The real person who saw Gavin for the first time is actually the same as the photo, but obviously more handsome and younger, with flaxen hair that catches the eye.
Gavin himself is very easy-going. When the staff introduced us, he praised the venue and praised cool. At the end of the interview, he did not forget to remind us whether we want to take a group photo. You can probably feel it from the expression of Gavin himself in the above photo.
In this interview, Gavin revealed that Polkadot's main network will be launched in mid-November this year or January next year. Until then, experiments will be focused on the testnet Kusama, including some adventurous ones. However, Gavin said that Kusama is not a test network, and 100,000 Polkadot token dots will be allocated here.
In addition, Odaily asked Gavin how he thinks about the comparison between Polkadot and Ethereum. He said that the two do have similarities in technology: both are sharded blockchains, their application scenarios are also very similar, and both have gas fees. However, he also pointed out that Ethereum is also constantly iterating. There are also many differences between the two, including consensus algorithms, architecture, smart contract operating logic, and so on.
The main content of the interview is as follows:
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"Testnet" is not a testnet, but a canary network?
This week, Polkadot announced the testnet Kusama. Modules such as consensus, functions, and governance mechanisms deployed on Polkadot in the future will all run on this network.
However, Gavin Wood believes that Kusama is not actually a testnet (testnet), but a canary network, literally translated as "canary network".
“The canary network is a low-value network, but it still has enough economic value to show that the token economy can work. If we treat it as a network with no value, then no one will really use it. " Gavin told Odaily that they hope that users and developers can really use this network. Otherwise there's no way to really know what it's like to run Polkadot in production. "We really want to understand the operation of Polkadot on it, including applications, governance, consensus, and even being attacked. We want to run Polkadot in a semi-real environment."
He told Odaily a story. In England in the 18th century, coal was still the main source of energy, but some coal mines were very dangerous. If you put a miner in directly, he would suffocate. So the British thought of a way, they would Put a low-version miner in it. Like a canary, if the bird dies. The miner must not go in either.
Kusama is a bit like an early version of Polkadot, but that doesn't mean it will be abandoned in the future. 100,000 dots will be distributed on this network, accounting for 1% of the current total.
"It does sound a bit confusing, because no one has done it before." But he told Odaily that before Ethereum, there was a similar platform, which was a test network, but by using this network, you can really get real Ethereum. At that time, they also held some activities or called games to encourage everyone to use this network to test the carrying capacity of Ethereum. For example, if you send a transaction with the largest amount on the test network, you can get a bonus (ETH).
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Polkadot is a blockchain platform, but not a traditional blockchain platform
Polkadot is well-known in China for its cross-chain, but Gavin clarified that what Polkadot wants to do is a general-purpose blockchain platform.
What problem does Polkadot want to solve? What are its advantages?
Gavin said, "It is a blockchain platform, but it is different from traditional blockchain platforms. Bitcoin solves payments, and Ethereum is a smart contract. We hope to let other blockchains do what they want to do. , create everything to everyone."
"We are not trying to connect existing platforms, but to provide an innovative platform. Cross-chain is only one of the basic functions of our platform, but this is not our goal."
"Developers can use Polkadot to do what they want. Every shard can interact with Polkadot, and they can send information other than tokens to Polkadot."
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China's environment is very different from other countries
China is definitely a very important market for Polkadot. In the previous fundraising, Chinese investors accounted for a very large proportion, and China is one of the countries most interested in blockchain in the world.
When asked how to deal with China's regulatory issues, Gavin said that he never thought of this as a problem. "If I want to issue a new token, that's a big problem; but that's not what we want to do, we want to be a platform. So I don't think it's a problem."
"You can do business in China and not deal with China. Because of the algorithmic stuff, that's what it is."
Instead, he believes that China's more prominent feature is an "entrepreneurial spirit" - everyone is looking for opportunities to make money. Of course this fits well with the blockchain. Bitcoin is like this, you can mine coins. People in every country want to make money, but the Chinese are more willing to make money. So the Chinese are more willing to participate. "In northern Europe, for example, very few people would say 'why would I want to be in this, I've got everything'."
When asked about the recruitment plan in China, he said that there are indeed many Chinese developers in the community paying attention to Polkadot. "In China, if you do a meetup, it may take a few days to post a message, and it will be full; but if you are in Germany, it may take several weeks before some people sign up."
"The community's attention will make us feel that what we do is valuable and useful."
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The public offering is expected to start this year, and the mainnet may be released within half a year
Gavin said before that the tokens will be released about three months before the mainnet is released. When will this sale be made? Is there a specific time for the mainnet launch?
Recently, Polkadot completed a private sale of 50 dots, which accounts for 5% of the current total. The amount of financing is 50-60 million US dollars, and the valuation is 1.2 billion US dollars. A large part of it is from Chinese investors.
According to previous foreign media statistics, Polkadot has a total of 10 million genesis block dots. As of this financing, it is believed that 1.5 million dots are still available for subsequent sales. So far, 5.5 million dots have been sold to private investors, and 3 million dots have been reserved for the Web 3 Foundation for the development of Polkadot.
Polkadot’s mainnet launch doesn’t have an exact timetable, but it could be by the end of this year. "Either mid-November or next January, not in between. Because we don't want our vacation ruined by the blockchain. Haha," he said, "One thing is for sure, we don't want Release an insecure network."
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Polkadot is technically similar to Ethereum, but also has many differences
Many people will compare Polkadot with Ethereum, and Gavin thinks it is quite reasonable for this point. "Indeed, Ethereum and Polkadot are technically very similar."
There are many kinds of blockchain platforms, and both Ethereum and Polkadot are fragmented blockchains, and their application scenarios are also very similar, and both have gas fees.
However, he also pointed out that Ethereum is also a fluid concept, and it is constantly iterating. There are also many differences between the two, including consensus algorithms, architecture, smart contract operating logic, and so on. For example, in Ethereum, the consensus mechanism and application logic used by each shard are the same, but not in Polkadot, and the shards can be completely isolated.
Gavin once said aggressively: "PoW is SHIT." So we also asked Gavin how he views the flaws of the PoS consensus mechanism.
Although the existing PoS mechanism does not consume real resources, it is not safe. Such as DPoS. He believes that PoS can be secure under a specific designed mechanism, such as Cardano's consensus mechanism, but only if people think rationally. "We have also had a lot of ideas for designing PoS, and I am confident that it is feasible."
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Recently, I am paying attention to the design of governance mechanism
So, what has the Polkadot team been focusing on recently?
According to Gavin, there are several teams within Polkadot focusing on different tasks: the team is mainly working on Kusuma, and there are also parallel chains, a team is responsible for designing governance mechanisms, token economy, etc., and a team is responsible for consensus mechanisms. Gavin is mainly the team that designs the governance mechanism.
When it comes to the governance mechanism, Odaily finally asked Gavin whether he was worried that the current release of too many shares and the high currency price would lead to the concentration of most of the currency in the hands of a few people.
He admitted that this might happen, but he pointed out that in the future, dots will be issued every year, and there will be no upper limit on the number. Polkadot hopes to distribute dot to some people who contribute to the network, not just to make the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. For example, maybe not all the additional tokens will be owned by the pledgers; some will be allocated to those who contribute to the network; or whether to allocate will be decided by the governance committee (in which token holders have a say).
